


Lies and Revelations

by glacis



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-31
Updated: 2010-01-31
Packaged: 2017-10-06 21:12:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/57800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glacis/pseuds/glacis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Methos gets a dose of bad medicine and now it's Mac's turn to help out a very old friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lies and Revelations

_"The best laid schemes of mice and men gang aft a-gley" Robert Burns, 1759-1796_

Best laid plans of mice, men and Immortals, it seemed. Methos glared at the computer screen, invoking ancient dieties of communication who were obviously ignoring the modern world. The Watchers were riddled with spies from attic to basement, it would appear, and he was not the only Immortal to hide in their ranks. Or to hack into their database.

Someone was hunting MacLeod.

Didn't matter that the Highlander had left the Game months before, off to his holy island to hide, lick his wounds, meditate, stare at rocks, whatever a five hundred year old man did with nothing but himself and his katana for company. Methos didn't see it, himself. He was ten times the other man's age, and the only times he'd hidden on holy ground were when he was too tired to run or had too many pissed off husbands on his trail.

After five millenia, he was seldom too tired to run. He'd honed survival to a very fine art.

It was time to use that art on behalf of another, looked like. He wasn't used to this altruistic shit, but then, he'd taken up a number of unusual habits since hooking up with MacLeod. He just hoped he wasn't going to regret this one, too. He'd already had to step back into the game, and as painful as Quickenings had become, that was a very large regret. At the back of his mind, he wondered when the cup was going to run over, and how he would handle the spillage. There were very few truly ancient Immortals still alive, most having been lost to hunters or madness long before. He'd only made it himself by becoming a shadow, staying out of the whole mess as much as possible, packing it in and walking away when life came too close.

MacLeod had taken his emotional steamer trunks and tossed them in the river.

He couldn't walk away from this. MacLeod was his friend, and Methos had killed most of his other friends by now. Or they'd been killed because of him, often in front of him. One way or another, he was very nearly alone. He found he didn't want to lose the last good thing that might ever happen to him. Even if it hadn't actually happened, the potential was there, as long as MacLeod lived. No fun fucking a headless corpse.

Shaking the mental image that created from his mind, Methos bent back to the computer monitor. A warmth behind him and the familiar shuffling gait told him that Joe had joined him. He nodded, not taking his eyes from the data running along the screen.

"Looking for a bolt hole again, Adam?" Joe asked quietly. There was humor leavened with disapproval in the warm whiskey voice.

Methos shrugged one shoulder, pushed another button, and cursed under his breath in Etruscan. "Not me," he tossed over his shoulder. Then he pointed at the caption under the picture currently displayed. "Him. And not to hide in, either."

Joe leaned forward to peer at the image. "Shit," he breathed. Methos couldn't help but agree. "MacLeod?" Even more quietly, a bare whisper in Methos' ear.

"Yeah." Ancient eyes met sad sherry eyes, and understanding passed between them. MacLeod would be protected whether he wanted it or not.

"How do you think he'll do it? Even Krage wouldn't attack him on holy ground."

Methos stared at the cold, finely sculptured face staring arrogantly back at him from the screen. "Vikings haven't had a problem with killing on holy ground since they hit Lindisfarne. Ask the Irish. But I think he'll play it differently. Probably tethered goat. He'll do what that mad Irishman did a few months back, target the people MacLeod cares about. Not that many, now. Amanda, probably, to start with."

"Might be tough. She's in Tibet somewhere." Joe grinned at him, and Methos grinned back. Leave it to Amanda to find something worth stealing in the middle of the most inhospitable mountains in the world. Methos turned back to the screen, scrolling through the file, looking for some hints to Reichart Krage's modus operandi.

"Oh, bloody hell," he hissed, as the truth hit him. "He's a neanderthal, Joe. But he's a damned observant one. He won't bother with goats, he'll go straight to the source. Who's his Watcher?"

Joe reached past him for the keyboard, leaning against Methos for balance as his fingers flew over the keys. Within moments, a matching data file blinked onto the screen. "Gary Buardess. Experienced, over fifteen years in the field, very stable." More buttons, more data, a quick, indrawn breath signalling anything but the norm. "Damnit. He hasn't reported in for over a week."

He was reaching for his cell phone when all hell broke loose.

Methos felt the buzz at the same moment the side door was kicked in. The strength of the other's Quickening made him dizzy for a fatal moment, and he reached out to Joe an instant too late to stop the other man from moving into the main room. The Watcher could move fast when he wanted to, even with his sticks and his prosthetic legs. Shaking the residual effect of the buzz off, Methos followed very cautiously, staying to the shadows. The other Watchers didn't know he was an Immortal, and he'd just as soon keep it that way.

As he peered around the doorway into the living room of the house, long since converted to a computer center for tracking information, he winced. It looked like his cover wasn't going to last very long at all. Joe had, with his usual bravery and total disregard for personal safety, gone to the defense of the younger Watchers in the room. Krage saw the greying hair, the air of authority, the obvious protectiveness, and zeroed in on him with gusto.

Just what Methos didn't need. Gusto, this early in the morning, from a two thousand year old Teutonic sociopath trying to find his best friend by threatening his only other friend. There were days when it simply didn't pay to get out of bed. Letting his masking slip, a handy little trick he'd kept secret from just about everyone, he allowed a hint of his buzz to escape, alerting Krage to the presence of another Immortal in the area. Krage's nose tipped to the wind like a hunting dog, and Methos sighed again. This one was much too far gone to appeal to his sense of secrecy. He was rabid. The only thing that could be done with him would be to put him down. Unfortunately, Methos didn't have his gun with him, or he'd simply shoot the bastard, take him somewhere remote, lop off his head and be done with it. Also unfortunately, the rest of the Watchers were nowhere near the two guns kept at the office, and Joe's was in his desk … on the other side of the rabid mastiff currently threatening him.

Methos had a really bad feeling about this one.

Settling his hand around the hilt of his sword, he squared his shoulders, said goodbye to Adam Pierson, and focused completely on becoming Death.

He didn't hear the gasps, garbled questions, or oaths flung at him from the assembled Watchers. All he saw was Krage's face, the world narrowed down to icy grey eyes and a feral snarl. He instinctively marked Joe's position, preparatory to drawing the fight away from the vulnerable mortal. Then the Dane drew his battle axe with one hand and his heavy sword with the other, and the battle was joined.

Hefting his broadsword with a sure, two handed grip, he made short work of the battle axe. He felt the chunk of metal knocked from the edge of his sword by the curve of the axe blade, but with a twist of his shoulders he tore it from Krage's hand and flipped it out of the battle area. He heard a scream, vaguely, as someone dove out of the way and the wickedly edged axe destroyed some equipment, but he was too busy to worry about bystanders at the moment. Losing his axe just pissed Krage off.

Twisting, turning, putting the strength of his back and legs into a committed offense the likes of which he hadn't made for years, Methos hacked at the berserker. Howls of rage broke from the other Immortal's mouth as he stood, rock solid, and did his best to chop Methos into pieces. In contrast, Methos was eerily quiet, ignoring everything and everyone around him, an odd light gleaming in his eyes as he followed his enemy's every move. Followed, countered, and broke through, time and time again.

Krage was strong, and insane, and determined, and good. He'd been weaned on blood fueds, a follower of Ymir in the time before Odin, devoted to Ran in the time of expansion, ancient before he left the ice of the North to pillage with his brothers. But Methos was even more ancient, and more cunning, and had been Death a millenium before Krage was born. And Methos was not yet ready to die.

Blood flowed freely from both straining bodies, a deep slice to Methos' chest, another along his thigh, weaving blue fire through the bright red fluid, healing almost immediately. The murmurs in the background rose and fell, as it hit the Watchers that their researcher was not only Immortal, but old enough to have the strongest Quickening they'd ever seen. Methos ignored the whispers, as he ignored the pain, and adjusted his attack to balance his injuries. Krage healed less spectacularly quickly, but still fast enough to show his own age. If there had been room in the single minded pursuit of survival that had overtaken Methos' brain, the earlier unease would have intensified, but there was attention for nothing other than the will to kill.

Fiercely, intently, he closed on the faltering Krage. Deep cuts to the abdomen, at least three broken ribs from a slamming kick, copious blood loss from a scalp wound, and a crushing blow from a hilt that broke the fingers of his left hand were the beginning of the end. Finally ducking under a wild arcing swing, Methos rammed his broadsword through the berserker's ribcage, ripping his heart into pieces. Lifting one heavy foot to his enemy's gut, he wrenched the sword back from its deep seat in the other's chest. Gathering the last of his strength after the grueling fight, Methos swung his weapon two handed, cleanly separating Krage's head from his shoulders. The swing nearly overbalanced him, and he dug the tip of his sword into the carpet underfoot, balancing on its sturdy weight, panting harshly.

The first jagged bolt of Krage's Quickening hit him directly between the shoulderblades, sending his head arching back as his knees buckled under the force of the blow. His eyes flew open, meeting Joe's in an instant of pure, unadulterated anguish before his being was consumed with fire. Then his pupils dilated, lost focus, and his attention collapsed completely inward, drawn by the electricity searing his nerve endings. Every muscle in his body strained, then relaxed, then strained again, as the powerful surge of life force moved through him. Faces swirled through his mind, and he heard voices in the wind buffeting him, overpowering the electronic screams as machinery throughout the building shorted out and exploded. Watchers dove under tables to escape stray flashes of energy, as metal desks were ripped apart and electric cables melted to slag.

He noticed none of it. Krage laughed, in him, through him, around him, and the laughter was subsumed in the screams, behind him, within him. Two thousand years of pain, of pillaging, of murder, of cooking meals on the corpses of the enemy, of living to die in battle, joined and melded with five thousand years of a different sort of pain, first felt, then committed, of dying and killing, of running and fighting, of loving, losing, and killing again. The faces screamed up at him from the grass as he tore into their bodies, laughed down at him from the sky as he was torn in turn. Barriers broke and wept blood; memories so deeply submerged they had disappeared now paraded before him, laughing and screaming, refusing to be forgotten again.

The Quickening went on forever, an eternity of pain endured and inflicted, victims and lovers interchangeable in their agony. The broadsword became his anchor, and he held on tightly as his body jerked and twitched with the force of the energy he drew from his enemy. As the currents finally eased and the pain began to subside, he drew a ragged breath down a throat gone hoarse from screaming, and curled shaking fingers around the hilt of his sword. Throwing out a hand to ward off Joe's approach, he knelt next to Krage's decapitated body. Slowly, deliberately, he wiped his blade on one of the few remaining clean patches of clothing, then forced himself to his feet.

Bodies were coming toward him, hands outstretched. With the greater part of his mind still caught up in the horror of the Quickening, he perceived them as threats, and lifted his sword defensively. They stilled, all but one, and he dimly recognized the caring under the rough voice. It wasn't enough to reach him, couldn't break through the maelstrom of faces whirling around him. Keeping the sword as steady as he could with both hands, he backed away from the bodies, away from the voice. Had to hide, had to heal, had to … had to … he had to find someone. There was something he had to do.

Someone he had to kill.

 

Joe stepped forward carefully, one hand outstretched, the other balancing himself on his cane. It had been a hell of a fight, one of the worst he'd ever witnessed, if not the worst. Both Immortals had been reduced to hacking away at one another like animals, the sheer need to live finally determining the winner. He'd learned a few things about Methos during that fight. Maybe, if he was lucky, he could forget them one day.

When it was over, and the damned lights stopped blowing up, and the windstorm finally calmed down, he'd gotten out from behind the big desk he'd hidden behind, and tried to reach his friend. But he didn't recognize the man he knew in those wild black eyes. He saw ages upon ages of suffering in those eyes … but he didn't see Methos.

He saw Death.

As strong hands brought the sword up and waved it threateningly at them, he motioned the other Watchers to back off. But still he inched forward. He had to reach him, somehow. They'd been through one dark Quickening already, and it had nearly destroyed a good man. If this was another one … Before he could complete the thought, much as he didn't want to, the swordpoint stopped wavering, pointing steadily at him. The patrician features were drawn into a grimace of unconcealed hatred, a strong-planed mask of targetted destruction. As Methos, or whatever Methos had absorbed with the Quickening, backed out the door, one word fell from the snarling mouth.

"MacLeod."

Joe felt the world tilt.

Standing there, staring after his friend, it took a moment for the chaos around him to sink in. Snatches of half-hysterical conversation hit him, and he shuddered.

"-Immortal! And pretty fucking old from the look of it!"

"So much for our Methos researcher! He was probably hiding the old guy all along, they look after each-"

"-oh my god, oh my god, oh my god-"

"-blood. The hea… "

"My computer is toast. There's blood on the … is that his HEAD?"

"-and did you see when the storm hit, he --"

So much confusion. Anger. Betrayal. Distress. Someone was crying, probably more than one. He had a job to do. He was the senior Watcher, it was his job to try to clean up this mess, reassure his people, take care of them. He stared at the wreckage of the room, the traumatized witnesses, the corpse, the blood, the broken, burnt bits of wood and metal strewn over the room, and quietly walked into the back room.

Closing out the Files, he switched over to email. Quickly, not thinking at all, acting on instinct, he sent one message, addressed to ClanMan@earthlink.net and cc'ed to LadyA@aol.com and blairs@u.ranier.edu, the young man who was MacLeod's liaison to the outside world. Priority urgent, just a few lines. Subject, "ALERT" and content, "Oldest friend took possible dark Q. Hunting MacLeod. Prepare to defend. Signed, Whiskey."

He just hoped to God it got there in time.

 

Halfway across the country, a studious anthropologist looked up in surprise as his computer beeped at him. He didn't really get all that many priority emails -- after all, most of his study subjects were members of ancient tribes who still communicated with drumming. And his partner hated email, much prefering the cell phone. Seeing the subject line, he immediately opened the message.

"Oh, man, that sucks." Grabbing his backpack, leaving a short, explanatory message on his partner's voicemail at the division, he headed out for his car. At least it wasn't raining, so the canoe ride would be a pleasure. Too bad it wasn't a pleasure trip.

Five hours later, he was hoarse from pleading with a brick wall. It had not been a productive conversation.

"He's dangerous, MacLeod. You know that, man, you've done this yourself. You couldn't control it, what makes you think the Old Man can?"

"I know Methos, Blair. He won't hurt me. Not if I refuse to fight."

"Refuse to fight? Have you lost it completely? I don't know about you, MacLeod, but if somebody was coming for my neck with a sharp instrument I'd get outta town if I didn't want to fight. What are you going to do? Sit here, by the campfire, and offer up your throat when he gets here?" Totally exasperated, the young man threw his hands up and walked away, then bounced a u-turn and came back to try one more time. "You know what happens when a Quickening goes bad, MacLeod, and you know better than anyone else what kind of life he has led. Do you want to be part of the load, man? You think it's going to be any easier for him to live knowing he killed you than it is for you to live with Sean's death?" Seeing the wince that memory caused, he pressed his advantage. "If you won't defend yourself for your own sake, man, do it for his. Please?"

Deep brown eyes bearing ages of sadness stared down at him. "I will not fight Methos."

Blair gritted his teeth. "I'm not tellin' you to take his head. He's your friend, you don't want to kill him, I am so down with that. But you cannot simply allow him to waltz in here and whack off your head. It won't do either of you any good. Are you hearing me?" He was right up into MacLeod's face at this point. He had to get through. He'd known MacLeod for a very long time, and through him had grown to know and care about Methos. He didn't want to lose either of them. Finally, the tense face close to his relaxed, then leaned forward and pecked him lightly on the nose. He scowled up at MacLeod.

"I hear you, youngster. I will defend myself. But I'm not going to kill him. I canna do that."

Hearing the stubborn determination in the deep voice, he knew that was the only concession he was going to get. Admitting defeat, he shrugged acceptance. "I hear that. That's cool. Just watch your back. And your neck." Reaching up to hug the older man, he trudged back to the canoe. He'd done all he could do. The rest was up to MacLeod.

And Methos.

 

He didn't know what reality was any more, so he wasn't sure when he was slipping out of it and when he was slipping into it. The night had been long, and cold, as winter nights on the streets of Boulder tended to be when walking until dawn. Gradually, the tingling in his skin lessened, and the memories began to sort themselves out. Some were Krage's, most were his. The ghosts of his slain enemy were laid to rest, eventually, with a great deal of effort. But the breaches in his own defenses were not so easily handled.

Time slipped with reality, and as he moved westward, his mind moved back through the centuries. The rage was still there, and the faces from all the Quickenings he had taken rose up in him when he was least prepared to deal with them. Kronos, a well of hatred so deep, so pure and strong, it nearly overwhelmed him again, barely held at bay by the will of MacLeod, undermined by his own misery and need, supported by the bewildered death of his other brother in blood. MacLeod was now inextricably entwined with them in Methos' memories, in the muscle memory of the hurts suffered at their hands and inflicted with their joyous participation. His hands clawed into battle readiness, his head bowed, and his back tensed.

Had to stop the pain. Had to kill the cause.

No one approached him on the long bus ride from Denver to Seattle. No one stopped to offer a ride on the long walk to Cascade, either, and it was just as well. His body was on target, but his mind was in a purgatory of his own experience. The bright laugher of a child at the station triggered another buried memory, one which had only surfaced in part when he'd led MacLeod to the hidden Spring to cleanse himself of the dark Quickening. Seven hundred years before, and the death of a madman who'd bequeathed his madness to Methos. So many dead. Women raped, men as well, used, then killed, then left as carrion while he went on hunting for fresh. The monk that had finally alleviated the madness, offering his life to save his brothers, bathing them both in the warm waters of the spring, an alliance in the search for redemption. An alliance that had ended badly, for the monk, and led to five hundred years of searching before yet another betrayal had caused him to withdraw from the game for another two centuries.

No pain, in hiding. No light, either, but he was used to the dark. Then MacLeod had drawn him back in. Back to the warmth. Back to the pain.

Further back, the humming of the wheels along the pavement lulling him into millenia before, a melody unlike any he had ever heard. He had broken every rule he'd made in his first two thousand years of life in order to listen to that seducer's song, had allowed the singer in, had taught him what he could, never enough, not nearly enough. He'd taken a student, a creature of light and harmony, warming Methos to his bones. A master, of song and history, faith and beauty, a man who had not listened, and had fallen victim to those who would never understand him. Torn to pieces by the followers of a jealous God, destroyed while Methos was gone and unable to protect him. The world had lost its music when Orpheus was lost, but Methos had lost much more. He had fallen into a pit of death, and found brothers there to relish it with him. The darkness had swallowed him whole.

As it was swallowing him now. It gnawed at him, needing to be released, unleashed on the one responsible for making him feel again.

The final walls inside crumbled, and the oldest pain bubbled to the surface. He'd thought the man a God, his first master, his final master as a mortal. He'd been a bard, a teller of tales, a soldier when he had to be, for who was not? It was a world of war, and war made history, and he was an historian. Until he was a slave. The master had been drawn to him, in a way cruelty seemed to always be drawn to him. He'd died, although he hadn't known it the first time, too overwhelmed with the pain in his throat and in his chest and between his legs and at his wrists. He'd not realized it the second time, or the third, either. He'd been unforgivably stupid when he was young. When he finally had understood that he died and was reborn, he'd thought it was divine punishment, to live in order to die in the pleasure of his master, and that his master was the God driven to take the pleasure and give life as reward for it. An eternity of pain. Life into death into life into death into life again, at the whim of a cruel God who literally loved him to death. Until something had snapped, inside, and he'd fallen on his God like a beast, beating his head in, ripping and tearing with his bare hands until he had torn his God to pieces. Lightning had struck him then, for daring to destroy a God, and he had screamed from the pain and the ecstasy of it.

The faces had shown him, then, what he was, and it was not a man. A sort of God, perhaps, but damned for all of that, by the fact of his Godhood. Destined to kill. Destined to die, and live, to kill.

It had begun in pain. Continued in pain. He had shielded himself the best he could, fought back the memories until he thought they had disappeared, killed and killed again, drowning his pain in the blood of others. It wasn't enough. He'd shut it down, closed it out, walled it up, until someone broke the walls and dragged him back into the fire, naked, unarmed, defenseless.

He had to strike out. Had to stop the screams. Had to kill the one responsible for him feeling the pain.

Too many years of death. Too much darkness with too little light to balance it. All the words of millenia pressing on his mind, the blood behind the words, the death behind the blood, the blessed numbness behind the death. He had been so many things, told so many lies, been so many different people, and he was tired. Time to stop lying. Time to be who he really was.

Something small and still shifted as he rowed closer to the green shore of the island. It protested, faintly, something holy, something safe. It was crushed by the weight of the years on his soul. There was no holy hiding place from a God born of blood.

The chiming of voices, of laughter and music, sounded all around him, filling his head with echoes, and he looked up at the man waiting for him on the shore. He knew that face. It was one of the faces screaming death at him. He dropped the paddle into the water and climbed over the side of the canoe, wading to shore, pulling his sword from its sheath as he came. It was time to silence the voices.

Time to end the pain.

 

Duncan MacLeod looked at his approaching friend and knew he was looking death in the face. He didn't recognize the uncanny stillness to the set features, or the pure ice in the eyes, now the color of old coins in the sunlight. He'd heeded his young friend's warning, and read the email Joe had sent, so his katana was at hand. But he was determined not to bring death to this holy place, most especially not the death of a friend.

He'd had enough of death.

He wasn't given a choice.

The broadsword was sweeping toward his stomach before he could so much as open his mouth to greet Methos. Instinctively he jumped back, bringing his own katana up to fend off the blow. His position higher on the slope gave him an advantage, but he only used it to keep the deadly sword coming at him from cutting into him. Methos pressed the attack with a single minded intent to kill that Duncan had never seen in the ancient Immortal. It chilled him down to his soul.

If Methos was truly determined to kill him, it would take everything he had ever learned as a warrior just to stay alive. Barely escaping yet another whistling sweep of the long blade, he rolled under the blade and backed toward the cabin. As he parried blow after blow, he did his best to talk his friend out of his killing fury.

"This isn't you, Methos. Please," he ducked, hissed as the edge of the blade opened up a thin slice along his chest, and slithered out of the way of a back-handed swing. "It's the Quickening, it's making you do things that you don't want to do."

A smile greeted the words, but it looked more like rigor mortis on a skull than humor. "Don't tell me who I am, child. I am Death." A swat with the sword sent Duncan tumbling to the ground, the katana skittering away to the side, out of reach. Methos leant over him, that smile widening, stretching his lips but not making it to his eyes. "Yours."

With every ounce of strength he had, Duncan thrust a foot in the general direction of Methos' crotch and threw himself sideways, feeling muscles tear as he curled up into a ball and shot out from under the descending blade. A roar of anger came from behind him, and he scrabbled desperately for his sword, catching it up and flinging his arms up, elbows bent, katana lying along his back. The timing was perfect, and the blade took the brunt of the force from Methos' next blow, the broadsword sliding harmlessly off the katana's blade, shaking both men to the core.

Duncan slid sideways, in a modified crab walk, then exploded out of the crouch, katana flashing as he did his best to break through Metho's defenses. The ancient Immortal reacted to the attack with a howl of glee, whirling like a dervish, cutting at the katana, hacking away at MacLeod in return. The strength and dark joy of the response broke Duncan's concentration, and the man in him reined back on the warrior. This was what Methos, or whatever it was possessing Methos, wanted from him. It wanted the attack, lusted after the blood, demanded the death.

He wasn't going to satisfy those demands.

Falling back immediately into a defensive posture, he husbanded his strength, giving everything he had in skill, training and tactics to ensure that he was protected and that Methos was not harmed. The change in strategy worked beautifully. Frustration mounted behind the ice in those golden green eyes, and the rigid mask began to break. Unfortunately, his strength was beginning to wane, and Methos didn't show any signs of weakening. Finally, pinned to the ground, his neck much too close to the sharp edge of death for comfort, Duncan gave in to desperation and did the only thing he could think of to shock his friend back into sanity.

He kissed him.

Hard.

The only way Methos was going to cut off Duncan's head in that position was if he cut off his own at the same time.

Everything came to a crashing halt. The fight came to standstill, the only movement, the harsh panting from Duncan's mouth to Methos', returned in kind, and the heaving of straining chests pushed tightly together. Unsure of how to take advantage of the stillness, Duncan simply kissed harder, opening his mouth and devouring Methos' lips.

The broadsword slipped sideways. Neither man noticed. Methos' fingers clenched automatically, searching for the hilt, then stilled, all his attention focused on the man attached to his mouth.

The katana fell to the earth as Duncan's hand wove itself into Methos' hair, pulling him closer. Something inside, some instinct or hope or unacknowledged need, convinced him that he could reach Methos, this way if no other. He felt the struggle going through the ancient's body, not against MacLeod, but against himself. Then the tension snapped, and the tenor of the fight changed drastically.

Violent hands that had been trying to kill him moments before now moved equally strongly against him, tearing at his clothes, pulling at his hair to move his head further back. Long legs tangled with his, knees jabbing into the ground between his thighs, roughly thrusting his legs apart. The mouth he had been tasting turned on him, forcing his jaws apart, tongue probing without care or gentleness, claiming him. A different sort of fear caught at Duncan as his hands were caught and forced behind the small of his back, as his fly was ripped open and his shirt torn off. This wasn't love, this wasn't friendship, this wasn't bringing his friend back from the abyss. It was rape, plain and simple, and it was being done by a master. He couldn't move, couldn't fight, found every counter move he tried blocked efficiently and painfully. Methos had done this before, and he was skilled at it.

Duncan had been through this before, but not at the hands of a friend, and never by one man alone. His mind rebelled, as his body was forcibly restrained, until something clicked into place. Force. He was meeting force with force, again, feeding the darkness that was clouding Methos' mind. In his own dark Quickening, he remembered the sharp satisfaction he'd found when the woman had fought him, and he knew that Methos was feeling that same satisfaction now. Going against every ingrained instinct, he followed his heart, and let his body go completely limp.

 

The screams were louder now, the warm skin and hard muscle under his hands bringing back so many memories. His victims, taken on the bloody fields, smoke filling the sky from the ruins of their villages. His own surrender, ripped from him when the fight was lost, taken over and over. Many masters, many losses, many surrenders, each one a bitter taste and another brick in the wall. The cloth was in his way, and his fingers clenched in it, tearing it, digging into the flesh beneath. Sweet taste, sweat and blood and musk, his entire body blanketed with the heat of victory. So close, and he was hard, aching with it. Hating it. Needing it.

Then the muscles softened, the limbs went pliant under his hands. The mouth below his invited, accepted, relished his tongue, his biting kisses. His legs trembled, his torso lowered, his arms locked to keep himself upright, but his prisoner was moving with him, not against him, and it confused him.

Victory was supposed to hurt.

Pleasure had no part until after the pain. Where was the pain?

The voices cut through his head again, but this time the chiming laughter was louder, the light was brighter. He saw the faces, and he recognized some of them. Others, he knew, they were part of him, but they were not of him, and he turned away from them.

Hands came up around his shoulders, not pushing him away, but pulling him nearer. He felt dizzy, he couldn't breathe. The world tipped to one side, and his arms gave. He was falling, rolling, stopping, held fast. The face that had been against the grass, his victim, was now outlined with sky, and he held those bright warm eyes with his, waiting, expecting the pain to start any time, for his prisoner was now his master, and wasn't that what masters did? Then the face lowered, blotting out the sky, and he closed his eyes, accepting the pain, for in the end, no matter how hard he fought, the pain would win.

The gentle lips caressing his cheek, nibbling along his jawline, brushing his lashes had no place in his memories. He didn't know this touch, from this man. It didn't fit, didn't meld with any of the memories, stood out alone, distanced from the well of chaos in his mind. The mouth lifted, returned, teased at his own until his lips relaxed and he accepted the kiss.

He didn't know this taste.

Tentatively, he opened his eyes. Deep velvet brown against a backdrop of thick black, set in graceful lines and curves. He didn't know this look.

Strong, broad hands swept him endlessly, along his ribs, up his back, down to his ass, up into his hair. Gentle, inexorable, unstoppable. Learning him. Teaching him.

He knew this man.

With that knowledge came sanity, and with sanity, icy shock. He shouldn't be here. MacLeod didn't want this. If he had, he'd've said … done something, before he left. He wouldn't have left.

Would he?

Thoughts caught up in the internal debate, body responding to tender demands without will or restraint, Methos let go of the last of the pain, and gave himself over to the hands, mouth and body that were cherishing him. His clothing was removed much more slowly than he'd stripped MacLeod, and the urgency of attack shifted into the urgency of passion. By the time he felt MacLeod's hands urge his thighs apart and MacLeod's mouth cover him, lips and tongue working at the delicious ache, the debate was abandoned, and any thought of resistance with it. His world collapsed in on itself again, taken up completely with the mouth suckling at him, the softness of the hair brushing at his inner thighs, the strong hands cupping, separating, penetrating between his buttocks. The ground under his shoulders as he arched, the sea salt scent on the air, his fingers tugging at MacLeod's head, the explosion of fire centered at the base of his spine that blew his thoughts into fragments as he came.

Dimly, he was aware of MacLeod moving up his body, spreading his legs further, lifting his knees. A hot, agile mouth sharing the bitter tang of his essence with him, the strong arms braced at each side of his waist, the slow, deep grind of MacLeod's pelvis cradling his hips. The relaxed muscle yeilding to pressure and need, stretching, filling, a welcome weight grounding him through the haze. Then the urgent movements against him, his own arms circling the broad shoulders, his face buried in the sweat damp skin at the joining of MacLeod's shoulder and neck. The friction of hair against his chest, the twinge of muscles over-extended at his hips, the clamp of his knees against MacLeod's own waist, ankles crossed at the small of his back, pulling him further in, urging him on as his energy returned.

The cloudiness lifted, thought and sensation crashing back into reality as MacLeod arched against him, throwing his head back and moaning, low, deep in his chest. Methos felt the movement within him, felt the surge of energy, the swift crackle of Quickening mingling, as his own pleasure crested again. Then his legs were falling loosely to the sides, his hands tangling in the thick hair at the nape of MacLeod's neck, as they melted into one another. He inhaled deeply, imprinting the moment on his mind, knowing now he would know this touch, this taste, this scent. This man.

When MacLeod raised his head again, staring down at him, Methos met the searching look with wide eyes. Whatever MacLeod saw there seemed to satisfy him, for he hugged Methos tightly, then gently disengaged himself. Methos watched as MacLeod rose, gathered his katana, and turned back to him. Oddly enough, he wasn't afraid, even though he'd done his best to kill the other Immortal earlier, and he was now completely defenseless. He knew Duncan MacLeod. He'd never been safer.

MacLeod took a deep breath, then extended his free hand for Methos to take. He stared at the hand for a second, then up at the open, honest face beyond it. Clasping it firmly, he let MacLeod haul him to his feet. Without speaking, he gathered his own scattered clothing and his sword, silently preceding MacLeod up through the clearing and into the small cabin.

 

They didn't talk about the fight for the first week. Or the second. Gradually, Methos opened up about Krage, and the confrontation at Watchers' headquarters in Boulder. MacLeod had e-mailed Joe and Blair to let them know all was well, and, eventually, so had Methos.

By the end of the first month, it was actually true.

The island was a haven, a healing place, for Methos as much as for MacLeod. Over time, and good Scotch, and quiet nights in front of the fire, Methos shared a little of what had been hiding behind his walls. He used the quiet time to rebuild them, stronger this time, and with less pressure behind them. The pressure eased with each story he told.

He didn't tell all of them.

There weren't enough nights, and the walls were still too high for such honesty. Besides, the burdens were, in the end, his own. The only thing he really had to call his own.

But the pain eased, with the nights, and the security that came with holding and being held. Several months passed before the walls were strong again, and the burdens that he could share had been shared. MacLeod gained strength as Methos did, and wounds healed on both sides of the fire. Late one night, as they held one another in the warmth of the small cabin, Methos turned to MacLeod and propped himself over him, staring down into his face, memorizing the features all over again in case this last conversation didn't turn out the way he hoped.

"I've done this before, you know."

MacLeod grinned up at him, a hint of a smirk to the grin. "I'd hope so, after five thousand years. You dinna act much like a virgin, ya know."

Methos refused to be sidetracked. "Not the lovemaking. We both know how to do that--"

"Thank god!"

"-but the hiding." Methos ignored the interruption and tapped one long forefinger against MacLeod's chin. "I'm very good at it. But I hate it. And whose fault is that?"

MacLeod stared up at him mutely, obviously having no clue where the conversation was going.

"You, you twit," Methos sighed with exasperation. "I was perfectly … content hiding in my shell, until Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod came along and pulled me out into the sunlight. And I remembered that I actually like the sunlight. Now that it's gone, I miss it." He waited, patiently staring down at his lover, for the light bulb to turn on. Eventually, of course, MacLeod got it, and his face closed up. "You can't hide forever, MacLeod." It was a gentle reminder, and an invitation.

MacLeod closed his eyes, refusing both, and Methos remained precisely where he was. It was the truth, and MacLeod knew it was, and he would have to face it sooner or later. From the stubborn look on the Scot's face, it looked like it was going to be later. He nodded. He'd expected that, actually. MacLeod was too pig-headed for his own good. But Methos was willing to wait. He'd done that before, too. And never for anyone he was as willing to wait for as this one.

"Whenever you're ready, MacLeod." Relaxing back against the broad warm chest, Methos closed his eyes and waited to fall asleep. He could feel MacLeod staring down at him, but didn't let it bother him. In his own good time, MacLeod would come to the same conclusion, and when he did, they'd stop hiding and rejoin the world. Until then, he'd just lay back and enjoy it.

_finis_

Overheard in a church in the south of France:

"It's nae right."

"You think too much, Highlander."

"But it canna be … Methos … what are you … Holy Mary, Mother of God …"

"You'd be surprised."

"Yeah. Am. Oh. Guid God."

"Not in this era."

 ~


End file.
